Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The thing is, I check your blogs every night. Some of them during the day. I'm waiting for pictures and for stories and I keep wondering why you're not posting more. And then I remember that I'm not posting more.

In the ongoing battle of EG v. the AC, I won last night, but I think that was more sheer exhaustion than anything else. I also suddenly feel justified in my struggle, as everyone else seems to be fighting the same battle. It's validating. Or something like that.

Yesterday I was so tired, I fell asleep at lunch. While reading Proust and eating a hot dog. I wish I were exaggerating. After work, I headed to the library to do some more reading, and fell asleep again. At least this time I wasn't risking a mustard stain. But I had class from 7:00 to 9:30, the prof lectures like he's running out of time from the word "Go," and I needed to take notes for a friend who wasn't there. Solution: Rockstar. Pounded. Class was this odd hallucination of Proust and memory and time and friends and this sensation that I should be falling asleep, but I wasn't. Luckily that feeling wore off around 1:00 a.m. and I was able to crash.

This is why I live alone.

I'm actually really loving my Proust class. The prof lectures like a mad man, but a mad man who has Very Interesting Things to Say. And the reading is a lot (like too much a lot, and that's saying a lot coming from me), but beautiful in places and ways that you don't expect. Most of the themes are things I'm interested in reading and writing about--art, time, memory. But I realized yesterday that what it's really about, at least the books we've read so far, is adolescence. That age of obsession and confusion and pages and pages of nothing much that will somehow inform our adulthood. What's interesting about this, is that adolescence wasn't really a solid concept when this was written. People went from child to young (wo)man, not from child to teen to young adult. (To single and alone in an apartment full of cats.)

Sitting in class, talking about how we remember things, how we perceive time, how we manipulate our memories, and how real "truth" comes in the unbidden, unmanipulated memory--well, it drags me back to adolescence. To high school, to the first time I realized I had friends in high school. To the boys I watched in high school. (Proust is also all about the relationships--or the wanting of relationships.) High school wasn't easy, but I think part of the point is that adolescence isn't easy. That this time of obsession with ourselves, with others, is necessary to reach some stage of stability in our lives.

Wow. That got kind of serious. I promise I won't do that again.

Also: I won a $20 gift card to Borders in the McC staff raffle today. I'm thinking I'll get something frivolous. Thoughts?

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Of course it's one in the morning. Why wouldn't it be? And of course I'm awake. Sleeping is for people who, well, sleep.

That was profound. I'm profound a lot these days. Must be all the late nights. That or the cheese. And the Pop-Tarts.

Here's the thing: it's hot. It's hot, so I turn on the AC unit securely fastened in my window. And that huffs and puffs and blows cold air all night. Yay for cold air. But then--and here's the tricky part--the huffing and puffing keeps me awake. So I turn off the AC. And I fall asleep for a little while. But an hour or so later, and I wake up hot and icky and uncomfortable.

I feel guilty for complaining about this. I'm grateful for my apartment, grateful that I get to live [just north of] Chicago, grateful for that AC unit. But I haven't had a good night's sleep in over a week. I'm starting to look like one of the more disturbing Addams family members. Maybe the fat little boy in the striped shirt. Or the hand. No body, just a hand. He was my favorite.

Here's to round two of EG v. the AC. I'll tell you in the morning who won.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Thursday night something happened. The stars aligned, Hulu offered up some inspiration (it happens), and I suddenly knew that I was brilliant and ready to write. But by the time I reached this conclusion, it was almost 2 in the morning and I needed to sleep so that I could go to work the next day. I considered calling in sick, but since Monday had been a holiday, I wanted to put in a solid day of work.

And of course I was too distracted to really work. But I did an excellent job of pretending. (I actually was quite productive while still thinking about the poems I was going to write after work.)

But after work came, and since it was Friday, there was Nevins. I love Nevins. Most of the time. But I was still aching to write. I was zoned out and in my own world most of the time I was with my friends. I couldn't explain to Powers why I wasn't all the way there, but this was it: I wanted to be working, writing.

After Nevins I ran to B&N for a new notebook. I took the bus home. And by the time I got home,

it was gone. Not the desire to write, but whatever fire had been burning in my head--it was gone.

I keep trying to re-create Thursday night, to put that fire back into my head, to put together the pieces. Instead, I'm bouncing back and forth between almost-inspired and definite depresssion. I'm not going to let myself crash, but I'm so close. So close.

I want to write, dammit. Where did it go?

*Thoreau said that writing after the inspiration is gone is like ironing with a cold iron. Just in case you were wondering.

Friday, July 09, 2010

You probably won't believe--I'm not sure I believe me--but somehow writing that last post got all those awkward needy feelings out of my system. I'm good to go, at least until the next hormonal up-surge.

In the meantime, I'm finding myself desperate to write and create and art. Art is a verb, people. At least, it is now. I'm at work, looking at numbers, and I just want to be curled up in front of a painting at the Art Institute. Or the Tate Modern. Let's go to London, friends.

I sent some of the poems I've been working on to one of the poetry profs in my program. (This post brought to you by the letter P.) She was enthusiastic about the work I've been doing this past quarter--and so am I. It's something new and very very--well, me. It's the kind of poetry I want to write, at least right now, not some pale imitation of someone else's work. It's all mine. It's a good feeling.

So this is detox. I want to write. I want to talk with people about writing and art and excitement.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

It's back. My wedding obsession. And, by vicious relation, relationship obsession. This is not healthy. I'll be the first to admit. Guilty as crazy. But right now I'm also listening to music and thinking about how brilliant the soundtrack of my pre-wedding party will be and how I'll know how to stop the DIY projects before my wedding looks like a craft fair instead of, well, a wedding.

Maryn sent me a video of five EFY guys singing "God Save the Queen." They're reportedly British. I kind of hope they're from Idaho. Just because.

I think I miss those days, when guys were possibilities and adorable. I know that's nice and vague of me to say "I think," but I don't really remember those days (that's right, I'm very very old). I hope Maryn makes the best of them.

Friday, July 02, 2010

Sure the 4th of July is the birthday of America, but the 2nd of July is the birthday of two of the most important people in my life: Stephen and Lauren (aka, Stephanie and Larry. . . those names are sticking).